Made With Moving Light, These Photos Celebrate The Beauty Of Trees And Nature

Photographer Vitor Schietti captures images of trees in both rural and urban settings. That all sounds great, but he’s not simply snapping photos of the trees. Instead, Schietti creates dynamic images of them using long-exposure photography and a torch.

The end result leaves his subjects swirling with light.

The trees, which are otherwise unassuming, end up looking like magical beings in Schietti’s photos.

The lights don’t have to be on just one tree to make a statement.

These ring shapes connect several trees, and make us aware of their relation to one another.

So how does Schietti make these? They’re not digitally manipulated — at least, not at first. To create these wild, undulating streams of light, he first sets up a camera on a tripod. While taking several long-exposure shots, he carefully moves a huge torch around the tree. This torch emits light much in the way that sparklers do.

The showering sparks create the streamer effects you see in these photos. The different images are then combined digitally, and the final result is a tree bursting with light.

The series is called Impermanent Sculptures, since these light formations only exist in his photographs.

Of course, trees aren’t the only things that Schietti works with.

The sparklers create stunning effects pretty much anywhere, especially when different colors are added to the mix.

(via My Modern Met)

You can see how Schietti makes his photos in this video. The process is incredibly simple!

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Because the process is relatively simple, this is actually something you can recreate at home with regular sparklers and the long-exposure setting on your camera. Just be careful, as always, when using anything that has an open flame.

You can see more of Schietti’s photography on his website, and check out some behind-the-scenes footage on his Vimeo channel.